He was able to fashion a serviceable outfit from Luke's pants and coat, leaving Luke clad in boxers that looked decent enough and his undershirt. Luke did not wake up all the way to Chesedonia, although he seemed reasonably healthy, just very much in need of the rest.
Gailardia was waiting for them in Chesedonia, or rather they arrived right after the ferry had arrived from Baticul: he'd been sent out as soon as they'd verified where the hyperresonance had gone.
"You lost an arm too?"
"I'm afraid so. What happened to Mystearica?"
"You mean the assassin? She escaped. Last I heard they were still looking for her."
"That's good. She's my sister."
"So that's why you got in the way." Guy went over to the bed where Luke still slept. "Hey, Luke, wake up." He shook him gently.
"He hasn't woken up since he was possessed by Lorelei."
"Possessed by Lorelei?" Van had to be kidding, but he wouldn't kid about something like that.
"I didn't just lose an arm. Luckily Lorelei was able to repair the rest before exhausting Luke's energy." There was no point worrying Gailardia with how close his liegeman had come to death.
"It didn't do anything to him, did it?"
"Why are you so concerned?"
"Well, we'll get in trouble if anything happens to him." Guy looked sheepish. "Everyone else was asleep, so I didn't really have any witnesses to back me up. They're going to want to interrogate you when we head back."
Van had expected that. "I don't know if it did anything to him or not. It manifested because of Luke's determination to protect me during the hyperresonance, and then manipulated my memories so that I sang the Grand Fonic Hymn. It compels Lorelei to aid Yulia's descendants, and this let it remain in control of Luke's body after the hyperresonance ended. It said that its presence might damage him in several ways."
"Damn it." Guy shook his head.
"Guy…"
"I know, I know Van. He's Duke Fabre's son. Or I guess that he was Duke Fabre's son. Since he came back he's been like a different person. You know who it was that taught him to walk and talk. His father practically ignored him. A lot of the time it feels like he's my son, not that murderer's. I know who Luke loves more, for one thing. The Luke that was kidnapped was the future monarch of Kimlasca, determined to make his father proud." Guy showed the proper attitude… towards Asch. "My Luke… If it wouldn't get you in trouble I'd kidnap him myself. He'd love to get out of the manor." At least Guy realized how unrealistic that way.
"I understand how you could get attached to him."
"Me to him? More like the other way around. If he had to choose between us and his 'real' family, he'd choose us in a heartbeat. I wouldn't ask him to, but sometimes I wonder if he would kill Duke Fabre for me." Guy smiled, an avenger's smile. "If I told him what his father did to my family, if I approached it the right way… he would avenge them for me, I think."
"He might." Luke was loyal… to them, and easy to manipulate. Not to mention that there was a lot of suppressed anger at Duke Fabre and the rest of the household for how Luke was treated. "He might indeed, to make things right between you."
"He's still just a kid inside, though. We adults can handle our own problems." Guy sat down on the edge of Luke's bed and shook him a bit. "He's really not waking up."
"I could try singing the Grand Fonic Hymn. It might or might not work, since Luke is asleep."
"Is there any reason it might be a bad idea to try?"
"I don't think so."
"Then go ahead."
They both could tell the difference, the way Luke's unguarded sleeping face was changed to one that held great sadness. It seemed to be an effort for Lorelei to open its borrowed eyes. Once it managed, it saw Guy leaning over him with his eyes narrowed. "Dr. Gardios?"
"What… Who?" Guy was Count Gardios, but Luke didn't know that. Of course Lorelei would.
"Oh… my apologies, Shining Guardian. I got… mixed up. You look a great deal like your ancestor. He was one of my few friends and he was generally the one that tended to the wounded until Julia created the fourth fonic hymn. Either he or Dr. Ella… But you don't look very much like her." Lorelei's eyes closed. "I have spent very little time incarnate indeed," he murmured.
"Can you heal us?" That was what Van cared about.
"I'm afraid not. This fragment of my soul's strength is still exhausted, as is my own. Between the Score, the need to hold back the miasma, and my true duties very little of my power is unspoken for. It was more Luke's power than anything that healed you, I simply provided the knowledge and the control." If it weren't for the fact Lorelei still spoke they would have thought Luke was asleep. "I can speed his recovery, at least. He is strangely resilient: a credit to your work and the light of the sacred flame's strength, oh one who would seize glory. My presence should not cause his fonons to disperse as it would a normal replica's."
"Replica?!" Guy stared at him, then at Van.
"You didn't… Oh, yes, you didn't know. I should have checked instead of thinking that your kindness to him was a sign that you did." Lorelei sounded very tired now, and not in the physical sense. "I have never been incarnate among those who knew my nature, and my thoughts are clouded."
"Is Lorelei telling the truth?"
He couldn't lie to his lord. "Yes. Luke was replaced by a replica during the kidnapping. You weren't told because you would have treated the replica differently and they might have been suspicious." Instead Guy had started to treat Luke differently in any case.
"I should have known he wasn't the same brat." Guy sighed. "So you're saving the real one for Akzeriuth while your replica gains their trust? Good idea."
Not exactly… but that would have to do for now.
Lorelei chuckled quietly. "Not Dr. Gardios indeed. Although he was a fontech researcher. I think you two would have gotten along very well." Real affection there. "You are far more open about your kindness than he was."
"You were really… You knew humans? During the Dawn Age?"
"Yes, I took human form to try to stop the war. At first I joined those who were trying to prevent humanity from taking control of the future, but as the war raged on and the miasma grew I had to accept that only if the future were already controlled would they give up and stop fighting. So I chose Julia, who was on the side of our enemies, albeit reluctantly. Dr. Gardios and Mal Fende never really were certain that I wouldn't betray them, although I was honest when I said that I had defected to preserve Auldrant… Dr. Gardios didn't suspect my nature, but he knew that my knowledge pushed the borders of what I should have been able to figure out. After all, he was in the same field. I think Mal was mostly just jealous, by the end." It seemed these were precious people, treasured memories, to Lorelei. "Of course, he had no need to be jealous. We had to have a bond between us to create the pact, but she could not love a spirit in her sword, a man who had lied to her all along."
"This is my ancestor you speak of?"
Lorelei paused. "Essentially."
"And 'essentially' is different from 'yes' how?"
"I will tell you if you truly wish to know, but I doubt that you do. The knowledge would not aid you in any way."
Something Lorelei didn't want him to know? When it had been so open about admitting that torturing Luke would hurt it? "Tell me."
"As you wish. For the pact to be created, our hearts and wills had to be as one. We did love each other, although there was no way we could be together or have the love that two humans share. But she did not know that. If she had known what I was then I would have been something to be studied, not a partner or a friend, and the pact would have been impossible. I told her that we could never be together, I told her that Fende loved her and she knew that, but she decided that if she now possessed the power to write the future, then she would write one in which I could remain at her side."
And she'd gotten that, both the listeners knew: Lorelei's spirit had inhabited the Key of Lorelei, her sword and shield. "But even as she killed me and wished that she did not know that Lorelei was her companion. I had changed my form because I did not want her to know she had killed me. Better to think I was lost to the monsters there. Asch and Luke are replicas of the form I wore then, when she defeated me."
"Asch?"
"That's what the original Luke calls himself now. The ashes of the sacred flame."
"So he was born naturally and he's still a replica?" Guy didn't know about the research on Hod, thankfully, but he knew about the field in general.
"No human would possess my fonon frequency or be able to hold my power naturally. I brought him about, as the Score dictated. If she had carried a normal child the Noble Lily," both Van and Guy knew enough Ancient Ispanian to know that was Lady Suzanne, "would have perished, even with the use of Daathic fonic artes to remedy the infertility her illness caused. Yulia ordained that I would cause his birth, so that a power capable of breaking the Score would exist in this time and Auldrant would have a hope of survival. She also… She also wished that we would have a child. That was all she wanted, peace and prosperity, freedom and love. That was all. I chose well, but… I could not give her what she wanted. This world could not. So I created a child for her, one that looked like her but was made of my power. And broken-hearted she realized that Mal loved her truly, so… But she realized who I was when the pact was completed. I hadn't wanted her to know. I am the spirit of memory and I couldn't keep her from realizing… The Score had to be absolute, it had to be something even we couldn't break or the war would have continued, but she had wanted to find her love who had vanished into the Abyss, and so she knew once it was too late."
Love, and sadness, terrible ancient love and two thousand years of mourning. "The Score couldn't permit dangers to it, but Yulia wanted our descendants to live on. For two thousand years, for two thousand years there have never been more than five alive at any time. Yet never less than two. She thought the word 'children' after all, not child." A smile now. "I had free will, I had the free will to give your mother a choice, because the Score made sure I didn't have the power to repair the damage to both of them. But she chose her daughter, and Tear lived just as the Score predicted. It was only two years, only two years since the light of the sacred flame's birth. Not long enough for a baby to make enough ripples to matter. I shouldn't have given up hope then, but I think my hope died a long time ago.
"Part of me… Of course, I am nothing but a part of me. A manifestation. Much of me wants to smother this child, do you realize that? Partly because I don't want him to have to live in this world and go through what he's going to go through, no, what he may go through, I have to believe that! But… it's partially because I want to live. I want to live and help you, my child, Galahad's child, I want you to live and I… I have become the monster you hate."
"Don't even think about it!" Guy's sword was out and held to Luke's neck. "If you possess him, if you destroy him, I'll kill you before you get a chance to do anything!"
"I know, I know, oh shining guardian who has chosen to become a just man. Cecil: blind one, as justice is blind, not caring about the surface. Thank you." Lorelei's eyes opened now. "Thank you for listening. I have been able to speak to no one, not even my kin, except for giving this poor child headaches in far too long. I think I am mad, but then I am this world and this world is mad. I will go, if you wish, although Luke will not wake up until he has the power to heal you. He refuses."
"I don't believe you." The sword was not removed.
"He won't wake up for me, but perhaps he would for you two, you are right. He is your child more than mine, oh one who would seize glory. I will leave and you may call him. Although…" Lorelei hesitated. "I will go." The battle against temptation was won. For now.
Golden eyes closed and Guy started shaking him one-armed. "Luke? Luke! Wake up! Do you hear me, Luke?!" Guy gave Van a look, clearly asking why on Auldrant Van wasn't calling as well, so Van gave in.
